


Rights of Memory

by shinychimera, Yeomanrand



Category: Leverage, Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, Asexual Character, Asexual Relationship, Crossover, Gen, Hospitals, Jossed, POV Female Character, POV Third Person, Post The Great Game, Present Tense, Queerplatonic relationship, Work In Progress, family-by-choice
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-12-29
Updated: 2011-12-30
Packaged: 2017-10-28 10:45:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/307050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinychimera/pseuds/shinychimera, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yeomanrand/pseuds/Yeomanrand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I'm calling about Sherlock," Sophie's nemesis says, in his unmistakable plummy tones. It is, perhaps, the only thing Mycroft could say to keep her from immediately hanging up on him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> _I have some rights of memory in this kingdom,_  
>  _Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me._  
>  (Prince Fortinbras, Hamlet, Act 5, scene 2)
> 
> * * *
> 
> Set after "The Great Game" in BBC Sherlock, and in the middle of year 3 of Leverage, somewhere around "The Gone Fishin' Job".

The drama begins in the middle of a post-job dinner, with the easy chatter brought about by adrenaline and survival flowing across the table over Eliot's exceptional cooking. Sophie's phone rings. Everyone glances at her while she glances down at the screen; a London number, one that isn't already in her address book and which she doesn't recognize.

She smiles around a sudden knot in her throat, not exactly apologetically, and gets up from the table. Nate watches her walk around the breakfast bar into the kitchen, where it's a bit quieter, but the other three, better at acting disinterested, slip easily back into their banter.

"Devereaux," she answers, back to the counter and her team.

"I'm calling about Sherlock," her nemesis says, in his unmistakable plummy tones.

It is, perhaps, the only thing Mycroft could say to keep her from immediately hanging up on him.

"What's happened?" She leaves the bite in her voice.

"An attempt on his life has put a man in hospital. Someone who...has come to matter to him. He won't speak to me, to anyone. Will you come?"

She hesitates, sighs; there's a burst of quiet laughter, a scuffle of movement behind her over Hardison's protest, "Oh, hell no. Give that back, woman."

"Was he hurt?" She's going, she already knows she's going, she must. But there's no reason to make this easy on Mycroft, either. He's _there_ ; he's supposed to be keeping a watchful eye on Sherlock, amongst his other obligations.

She can hear Nate pushing his chair back, but puts her finger against her ear to concentrate on Mycroft's answer.

"Somewhat. Not serious, but it would have been much worse had he been alone." A minute pause; the situation's more complicated than that, but not relevant until she gets to London. "I'm more concerned about his state of mind."

"And you think he'll talk to me." Nate leans on the counter next to her, brows contracted and blue eyes dark, but she gives him a more convincing smile and shakes her head, flicks her fingers back towards the table, mouths _be right there_.

"He might." He's decided to break their wary truce on the strength of a 'might'? She wonders if Mycroft is aware how much this reveals about the depths of his concern.

She wishes she could tell whether Nate's stubborn refusal to shift from the counter has to do with the depths of _his_ worry. Or if he's just hoping this is a chink in her armor, a chance to learn something "real" about her.

"I'll be there," she says, raising both eyebrows at Nate and the irritation in the pinch of her lips and tightness around her eyes is not _acting_ , not in the least. "I'll arrange my own flight and send you the details."

"I'd be grateful." The words sound light — as though trivial flight details are the only thing she's promising him — but they aren't, not between the two of them. "I could send you more details on the situation, but I'm not certain how secure your emails are...or how secure you need them to be."

"No, thank you." As if she would give him the slightest clue just how secure her email can be, or confirm whichever of her addresses he has discovered. And she can keep her own secrets from the team.

She ends the call before he can trouble himself with how to disengage politely from the thorns, and turns back to face the team, thumbing the three quick keystrokes Hardison has set up to "oober-erase" (Parker's delightful phrase) the call from the memory of both phone and phone company.

Their conversation stops, and they wait for cues: Eliot calmly neutral, equally ready to break bones for her, or to pretend the call never happened; Parker elfin and eager, hoping she'll be needed to scale tall buildings or find a way through impossible doors; Hardison gently worried and not sure how much to show it. And Nate...

"Where are you going?" Nate demands.

"London," she answers, and there's ice in her voice that he dares. "Alec, would you kindly book me the first available flight to Gatwick, using one of the throwaway aliases?"

"Uh..." Hardison looks back and forth between them, and Nate gives him a short, sour nod. Sophie's eyes narrow, and Parker, Hardison, and Eliot promptly perform the disappearing act they reserve for when the grownups are arguing.

Nate folds his arms as the front door closes. "What is this about?"

"I can't say."

"Sophie —"

" _No_ , Nate. I'm not leaving the team but this isn't up for negotiation. If a job comes up, you'll just have to manage without me; you've done so before. None of us is irreplaceable, no matter how much we'd like to think we are."

"Some of us," he says, "are more irreplaceable than others."

"Don't be an idiot," she answers, briskly. "I shouldn't be gone more than a fortnight."

"Just tell me _why_ , Sophie..."

As they are alone, she dares to lean in and kiss him on the deepening frown line near his mouth, the scent of whiskey already too strong on his breath.

"You're not the only one who needs me."


	2. Chapter 2

She leaves Boston ninety minutes later and sleeps her way across the Atlantic, conserving her energy; she arrives in London in the early hours of a crisp spring morning.

She knows Mycroft will have a car at the airport to pick her up; she brought only a small shoulder bag so she's quick through customs. His neatly-dressed assistant waits with the horde of chauffeurs, but she needs no sign; her dedicated texting posture identifies her wherever she goes.

The two of them fall into step, heading for the car, and she establishes the role she will play on this visit. "Hello. I'm Sophie."

"Leta."

"A bit old-fashioned, isn't it?"

"Is it?" She hasn't looked up from her BlackBerry, not that Sophie expected any different. "And you've never chosen an identity for nostalgia?"

"Once," she admits. "It ended...poorly."

"Things do."

They've arrived at the car, and the chauffeur holds the door for them. Mycroft's staff are nothing if not silently efficient, and Sophie abruptly misses Hardison and Eliot bickering in her ear. "We're going directly to hospital?"

"Yes; he didn't think you'd want to see him until after. You'll be looking for Dr John Watson in room 609; he was transferred from intensive care two hours ago." She pauses, and even her thumbs still for a moment. "Also, he's just reminded me to tell you he has sent someone to air out the flat, and would like to know if supper at the club at seven fifteen would be acceptable."

"Thank him, and check his schedule for supper tomorrow, please," she says, setting her bag at her feet and folding her hands in her lap. She doesn't want to see Mycroft at all, not really. She wonders why all the men in her life save one feel more secure when things are planned down to the last second. As though Shakespeare were right, and the world were only a stage where all would go to hell if one person so much as missed a cue, let alone forgot their lines.

She stares out of the window, watches London flow by to the rhythm of BlackBerry keys, and decides this is true of the men in her life save _two_. Hardison can improvise, if necessary; he wouldn't have coaxed Parker so close to him, and drawn her back again and again, if he couldn't.

❧

Sophie, no matter her alias, has never liked hospitals, and even less so now she's taken Nate's medical miseries into her heart as well as her own. White halls, unless it's a pediatric ward (in which case the colors and cheerful illustrations are garish and wrong for the setting), the unforgiving glow of fluorescent lights, and the _smells_ — antiseptic, astringent, blood, fear, resignation — always the smells, no matter how kind and conscientious the staff.

And this hospital's cold, too. She tugs her sweater closer around her shoulders and stops at the nurse's desk, adopting _apologetic and shy_ rather than _regal and demanding_ for the necessary inquiries.

She's directed to a private room with an empty chamber on either side — Mycroft's doing, certainly, though she's not sure if the undercover officer or agent of some stripe in the waiting area is his — and she steps out of the hallway to lean against the jamb of the open door.

Sherlock slouches in the sole chair in the room, which he has placed close to the bed, putting his back toward the window. Despite the somber chill, a blanket remains folded under his elbow; his steepled index fingers are pressed against his lips. A folding bed is made up and ready for him in the corner, but she can see he hasn't slept; not for days, if the length of his black stubble is anything to go by.

They both know he's aware she's there, but his gaze never flickers from the battered face of the man lying in the bed.

It's hard to tell much of anything about John Watson between his stillness and his healing bruises. He's older than Sherlock, though younger than she by a few years; there's a touch of silver in his dark blond hair and the lines on his face are about exposure to sunlight as much as age or emotion. He's breathing on his own, his heartbeat rhythmic and slow on the monitor. Good signs, all, even if he looks as if he went three rounds with Eliot and lost.

Same sturdy musculature as their hitter, though, beneath the hospital sheet; a little softer, but compact and strong, even at rest, broad hands laid on top of the blanket where IVs can easily be changed, pulse oximeter pinched around his right index finger. New bandages around his wrists and up his left forearm nearly to his elbow; the white edge of another over his collar bone beneath the neck of the hospital gown.

She takes a measured step into the room; Sherlock doesn't so much as twitch. It's not much, as invitations go, but she anticipated little else and she crosses the foot of the bed to set her hand on his shoulder.

He's tense under her touch, whipcord muscle and bone almost shaking in a way that has nothing to do with her. If Mycroft needs everyone to act on his cue, Sherlock needs to prevent anyone from knowing how deeply his emotions run. She steps behind the chair so he doesn't have to look her in the eye, tugs the blanket from under his arm, and wraps it around his thin shoulders.

After a moment, he sits up a bit straighter, reaches up to clasp her wrist, draws her arm down across his chest; just the suggestion of an embrace and there's a pang somewhere under her breastbone at the fragile, reluctant revelation of how badly he needs reassurance. She kisses the top of his head before resting her chin lightly against his crown.

He turns slightly so his head sinks back against her chest, and she closes her eyes. She waits for the curtain to rise, to see which direction their improvisation will go; she's in no hurry. She hasn't had the opportunity to hold him like this in a very long time.


	3. Chapter 3

Close to fifteen minutes, before a subtle shift of his jaw tells her that he's decided to resurrect his voice.

"What do you think about the Vermeer?" He speaks low and level, controlled; no, only the rust and gravel of disuse in his voice betrays him.

And the non sequitur isn't unexpected; they'll come at the heart of the matter — John Watson, Sherlock's silence — obliquely.

So why the Vermeer? It's clear from his tone and the shape of the question he expects that she's still closely following the art world, knows which painting he's talking about; she casts back through her memory to find a fact that would be easier with Hardison and his quick search skills to hand. Something concerning London — ah.

"The one at the Hickman Gallery?" She tilts her head so her cheek rests against his rumpled curls, considering. Lost Old Master, modern gallery... "Almost certainly a forgery."

"Almost certainly." He stares at the wall, at medical equipment, instructions in plastic sleeves, a large clock, as if he's looking at a museum display. "You're looking at the painting, gorgeous blues and violets and blacks, a spangled night sky over a town, a river, a bridge. You know that a gallery security guard has been murdered — a nobody, a tired man with fallen arches, an amateur astronomer with no family. You have ten seconds to tell me _why_ it's a fake."

The second hand on the clock is exactly vertical when he finishes speaking. She wastes two on the hollow strain in his voice, the why of the puzzle, rather than the facts he's handed her. The answer's in the details — security guard, astronomer, his description of the painting itself — but she doesn't have enough to tie them together, can't see the image he has in his head, and the second hand slides over to eleven.

"A child has died," he says harshly, "because you can't think fast enough."

Her breath catches, arm tightening around him. "But you did."

"By the skin of my teeth, and I could _see_ the one bright star." His eyes have returned inexorably to John's face, and he's too tense, his voice too flat. "But I still didn't understand, until it was almost — too — "

Only his painful grip on her wrist and the inability to finish the sentence give away his fight for control. She doesn't yet have the story to which to attach these terrible emotions, but she knows there are no platitudes for this moment, no adequate soliloquies.

"You would tear down the world to keep him safe."

"I can do _nothing_ to keep him safe!" He jerks his hand from her arm and thrusts himself from the chair — but freezes there, fists clenched tightly at his sides, blanket pooled around his feet.

Sophie pulls the chair aside and sets her hand on his back. He's not shaking, he's vibrating, humming like an industrial power cable. She's never seen him like this.

"You love him, Sherlock, and you're afraid."

She puts his emotions into words for him, and he flinches beneath her touch. She takes hold of his shirtsleeve and tugs gently; coaxing, not demanding — never demand, not with any of the Holmeses.

"Sherrin—" he croaks, brokenly, but doesn't move, not so much as a fraction of an inch, and so she slips around him with one hand on his waist. He continues to stare at John over her head, even when she reaches up to set her hand on his cheek. Still silent, still fighting and — he doesn't know how to _do_ this, she realizes, simply doesn't know how to grapple with the mortal, human fear that comes with recognizing that no one can really protect the ones they love.

 _Of course_ , she scolds herself, and sets aside Sophie and years of distance, the way she's wanted to since she first saw him sitting in the chair so forlorn. She stands on her toes and wraps her arms around him fiercely, drawing his head down to her shoulder.

Sherrinford expects no tears and Sherlock sheds none, but he finally clutches her to him in return, and she allows him to shake in her embrace; her body still perplexed that he is so tall, no matter how often her brain has adapted to seeing him as an adult. She holds her baby brother protectively, until at last the thrumming tension begins to drain away.

After a certain point she realizes he's afraid to let go, to let her see his face. She smooths his curls, steps back just a bit, rests her forehead against his sternum long enough for him to regain some composure before looking up at him again.

"Better?" He won't be all right, she can see that, not until John wakes.

He closes his eyes, then blinks them open again furiously. "The man who did this. Moriarty. He's still out there."

"And you won't be better until he's caught." Volunteering her team is on the tip of her tongue, but... they'd forgive her. Mycroft won't. She keeps her hands on Sherlock's sides, not letting him retreat.

"He's too smart to be caught, Sherrin. Not by the police, not by whoever Mycroft's got running around out there. He's like me. Like us."

Her body chills. She and Nate, she and her chosen family, have faced some clever adversaries, but no one to measure up to her relations.

"And he's threatened you, beyond..." She rubs a thumb across the bandage over his ribs, hidden by his shirt.

"He said he would kill me someday." That part, he sounds indifferent about, which makes her pulse stutter but hardly surprises her. "When he gets _bored_. When he's done... burning the heart out of me."

She follows his gaze to John on the bed, small in his bruised stillness, and a thousand thoughts race through her with a shiver of dread. Sherlock isn't afraid for himself. She knows all too well how the puzzle presented by a "worthy" adversary would normally energize him.

He's never faced anything like this, though.

She has ached for Sherlock over the years, seeing how much he's set apart; not stunted, not sociopathic, but as different from others in his emotions as he is in his genius. Since her estrangement from the family, she has watched him from afar, when she could: seen him struggling to understand who he is, then accepting himself, then rejecting any need to conform; disdaining the need even for friendship, much less love.

She looks away from John, back up at Sherlock's careworn face. His heart is already charred around the edges, and this Moriarty has only fired his first salvo.

Sherrinford always claimed some small black-humoured consolation, that Sherlock's disinterest has protected him from the ordinaries: unrequited longing, jealousy, heartbreak. But holding himself apart also hasn't allowed experience to build him any calluses against loss, and now he's discovered he's capable after all — and almost too late —

She has to fight not to squeeze her hands too tightly against his injured ribs. If he's stricken to immobilizing silence beside John's sickbed, what will grief do to him, if Moriarty or life itself should ever place him beside John's coffin?

If she knows Sherlock at all, he's been spending his sleepless days and nights in this cold room spinning out every possible way to prevent that calamity; only he _can't_. Not even his manic mind can grapple with analyzing the entire world, every day, watching every changing variable for the next manifestation of Moriarty's threat.

She sees it in Nate's face, sometimes, too, when he's not putting them in the line of fire himself: this obsessive desire not to let any of the team — but Sophie in particular — come to harm. To wrap her up, to keep the world from touching her, to keep her from taking any risks.

She hates that look. And she doesn't know John Watson, but she'll lay money he won't like it any better. _Something precious_ would be fine. _Something fragile_ is not.

"He was there with you, at the gallery, with the child?"

"He was there with me, through all of it."

"Then he doesn't want to be safe, Sherlock. Or, no safer than you are." She stops herself, sets a finger on his lips. The gesture works, as it did long ago at Sherlock's restless bedtimes, stilling _one more question_ until the dawn.

"This is what's going to happen. I'm going to convince the nice young officer sitting in the waiting room to go and fetch a razor and some toast and tea. You're going to have a shave, a bite to eat, and then a nap while I watch over both of you."

Not a demand, no snap in her voice trying to make it an order. Just a gentle guide to how things _must_ happen, if he's to be in any shape to continue taking care of John.

Sherlock is silent for long moments. His slow blink, when it comes, is a capitulation, and he draws on energy he doesn't have to grip her shoulders.

"I need you to be insane for me, Sherrin. I need to know that you will watch him like a hawk, watch everything that comes and goes in this room, that you will allow no one in without scrutinising — and I mean _scrutinising_ — their badges, their behaviour..."

He won't sleep any other way. The only other person he could trust with this duty is the one to whom he can't stand to expose these raw ends of emotion. She nods, holding his gaze with faithful calm.

"I will be paranoid for you. I will _be_ you."

Withdrawing some of his attention from John at last, he studies her face deeply; restive quicksilver eyes tracking the inroads time and caring have made on the corners of her eyes, the set of her lips, the texture of her skin.

"I don't know who you care for anymore. Is there someone?" He doesn't need her to answer aloud. "I need you to see that person lying here, having done something terribly, _stupidly_ loyal for you — "

He breaks off, and she doesn't mind that the emotion in her eyes is too real. Sophie can't; Sherrinford is allowed.

He shakes his head, squeezes his fingers on her arms. "Oh, Sherrin. I'm sorry. You shouldn't have to Method act this. Recent?"

"A long story for another time, but yes. Perverse nobility, a bullet and a prison sentence, a man for whom I have indescribably complicated feelings." She pats his hand. He knows quite well who else she cares for. "But I won't have to _act_ at all. If anyone should try to harm either of you on my watch, they'll wish they had only the proverbial mother bear to deal with."

Even through the exhaustion in his eyes, there's a mild flutter of humour at the intimidating presence that _mother_ conjures for them both. "Make your arrangements, then."

She picks up the blanket from the floor, holds it out to him. "I'll be right back. And I realize he's unconscious, but you might try talking to him while I'm gone."

He takes it from her hand, tugs his chair back towards the head of the bed and settles heavily, bunching the blanket against his torso. She gives in to the urge to ruffle his too-long hair, then steps around the bed and out into the hall, becoming Sherlock along the way.

She sends the necessary text to Leta, efficiently interrogates the officer and the head of the nursing staff to assess the ground rules Sherlock and Mycroft have set in place for medical access, and summons the items they need. The young man wants to inform his Detective Inspector, and she waits until she receives a reply from Leta before she gives him permission. She scans for other necessary courses of action, then takes a deep breath and conceals the heightened intensity she's mustered on Sherlock's behalf behind a façade of tranquility — she mustn't spark Sherlock to engage again, not yet.

When she quietly returns to the room, Sherlock has leaned forward in the chair to rest his cheek on John's fingertips, and she catches only the end of his whisper.

" _...and here you are._ "

Her eyes flick to John's face, then up to the monitor. She hadn't really expected a change, doesn't believe in fairy tales and happy endings, and a moment of meaningful touch being enough to wake a prince.

But that doesn't mean she hadn't hoped, just a little.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sherrinford Holmes is a hypothesized older sibling of Sherlock and Mycroft based (as far as we can tell) on two things: first, in the "country squires" tradition the Holmes family is said to come from, Mycroft isn't likely to have been in government if he was the eldest; and second, Sherrinford was a name Arthur Conan Doyle considered for his detective before settling on Sherlock.

**Author's Note:**

> The what-happened-after-The-Pool bit has been jossed by Series 2, but we still have some plans for this universe, and we haven't abandoned this even though it's been a long while -- we do plan to get back to it when we can.
> 
> Deep thanks to Rusting_Roses and SangueUK for beta and britpick.
> 
> Concrit always welcome!


End file.
